One thing I did not mention from my Las Vegas trip was that, during my walk along the Vegas Strip, I had stopped in at a mall to use the bathroom. I didn’t think it very worth mentioning here that I had visited a shopping mall, nor was it worth photographing, as it looked pretty much like other malls.

However, I had missed one important aspect, which was pointed out to me the other day: the place is a Strip mall.

The other night I was cutting up several leeks to make soup. When I sliced one of them open, I found that there was some waviness inside:

I’m not sure what could have caused this. It seems like something was pushing down on the middle of the plant, forcing those center layers to buckle. Maybe it was the snowstorm of a couple weeks ago (this leek came from the CSA we participate in at the nearby Hampshire College Farm Center). I could imagine a weight of snow on the leek pushing down in such a way as to cause this, and maybe the dirt would have provided enough support to keep the outer layers intact. This is pure speculation, of course.

By the way, the soup I was making is a pretty common recipe – potato, kale, and leek soup. My version is based on a recipe out of a cook book (the New Basics Cookbook, page 100, “Winter Vegetable Soup”), but I’ve made so many alterations and omissions that it’s really its own thing now. Basically, I saute a bunch of leeks (sometimes adding celery in I don’t have a ton of leek) in oil for 10 to 15 minutes, add some thyme and tarragon and saute a bit more, then add salt and many (12-14) cups of water. Bring that to a boil, and add cubed potatoes (about 5 pounds), and boil until the potatoes are near done, then add a pile of chopped kale, turn off the heat and set aside. The kale will cook fine with the residual heat. I soak and cook the chick peas separately (2 cups dried), and then add them after the rest of the soup is done. The soup is great with a big slice of bread.

Oh, and there was no discernible difference in taste because of the waviness of the leek.

Computer software may be able to win on a quiz show, but can it be trusted to identify groceries?

Every week I look through the sale items at my local supermarkets. I do this online, and generally go looking through by category. This week I noticed interesting placement of some items on one store’s site, which led me to believe that a robot of some kind is categorizing the items in the company’s database.

To wit:

Of course, these things are all in proper places in the physical store, but then it’s humans who place them on the shelves. As things get more automated, it wouldn’t hurt to keep this kind of thing in mind, lest we end up drinking a loaf of bread, sautéing with 10W30, or spreading toy trucks on top of toast.

Short post today, as I don’t have much time. Back in the mid to late summer, I happened upon two instances of livestock birds sitting on fences. The pictures were taken with my cell phone, so please excuse the blurriness of some of them.

Last month I attended the first ever New England Webcomics Weekend (NEWW).Â It was pretty fun.Â It was billed as the first comic convention (in the U.S anyway) that was all webcomic artists – nobody who works mainly or solely in the print realm.Â Given how popular webcomics have gotten this decade, it’s surprising that there hasn’t been an event like this before.Â What’s been interesting to me, in fact, is the way that webcomics have had a presence at various kinds of fan conventions.Â They’ve been at comic conventions, sci-fi cons, anime cons, and even some computer/software cons.Â They seem to appeal to a wider audience that comic books typically have reaching perhaps the kind of audience that newspaper comic strips have in the past (of course, as the newspaper industry seems to be dying a slow death, those strips’ audience is shrinking).Â Now a critical mass has been reached or passed, and webcomics fandom itself may spawn multiple gatherings (there’s already talk of doing something similar in the Pacific Northwest).

Check out the NEWW site to see who was there (it’s a long list).Â Don’t bother checking out the forum on the site – it was overrun by spammers just after the event happened.

I volunteered to videotape a few of the panels.Â Below are links to the stuff I recorded – 2 panels and the webcomics awards ceremony.Â Each video is broken into parts because of YouTube’s time limits.Â My apologies for the lighting in some cases – I had no control over it.

Another quiz, again discovered on Matt’s blog (and I like his result better than mine).Â My post title refers, of course, to this movie (hmm, which is actually from ’79 – oh, well).

Your Score: Ray Stantz

168 Heart, 154 Genius, 128 Cool, 156 Excitability

Dr. Raymond Stantz – (Dan Aykroyd)

Ghostbusters (1984)

You are Ray Stantz! The heart of the Ghostbusters. You’re well-meaning, smart, and you have a childlike sense of wonder about the world. You might get taken advantage of, every once in a while, but it’s okay… You’re doing your part to help save the world.

“Gozer the Gozerian… good evening. As a duly designated representative of the City, County and State of New York, I order you to cease any and all supernatural activity and return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension.”